Closing Out The Year

The checks are on the way. 

There are always conversations after the stated meeting that get cut short when someone happens to look at their watch. Those discussions are usually followed up on the following week when we all converge on the lodge for fellowship. This week that was definitely the case as there were numerous tasks that needed to be completed and ideas followed up on after the meeting. But, unlike those meeting nights, these weeks in-between are much more relaxed and, because we’re not trying to do 15 things at once, we are usually able to knock out a number of things on our respective lists.

There is still a back and forth among many of the brothers about moving spaces around the lodge, cleaning up and cleaning out certain areas, and other things related to the building usually come up over the course of conversation. This has been a relatively reliable pattern for the first half of the off nights. And while those mini meetings did take place this week, that was not the primary reason for setting aside the time and driving to the lodge last night.

With schedules already hectic and time running short this month, it was time to sit down with both the outgoing Treasurer and Worshipful Master to take care of the final checks for the year. Some were new, some were rewritten for one reason or another, but all of them had to be completed last night. This included the checks that I was looking forward to signing… those to the residents of the Masonic Villages. I tend to take a little extra time in inscribing my name on those checks as they serve, in part, as a means to let our somewhat distant brothers (and widows) know that we are thinking about them and that we are always here to help.

For as much as we have been focusing on the present and the future throughout the past year, we need to remember the past and those who put in the time and sweat to make our lodge what it is today. After all, without their efforts, there is no guarantee that we would still have a lodge to meet in every month. And that is what we need to take away from these meetings and informal fellowship nights… while things may not be perfect, they may not be exactly how we want them to be, they are still here because of the work of all the brothers before us. We are only the most recent in a long line of men who strived to make themselves and others better. And that is what we should strive to do every day as well.